The fight over one of the largest residential projects in Marin County is heating up with the release this month of a key report on the project. Developer North Coast Land Holdings proposed redeveloping the former Golden Gate Baptist Theological Seminary campus adjacent to Mill Valley in 2020 and has been working on the plan since.
North Coast wants to build 337 residential units, including replacements for existing units, on the 100-acre site as well as renovate the existing campus. Those homes would accommodate about 850 residents, including those living at a proposed senior residential care facility. Up to 50 of the units would be affordable for low-income families.
The project also involves creating a day care and fitness center, as well as outdoor recreation spaces, and renovating spaces used by Olivet University, a private Christian university on site. The seminary, which once taught more than 900 students on the campus, left for Southern California in 2014. The site is on unincorporated land near the Strawberry neighborhood.
The project highlights the county’s efforts to meet its state-mandated housing targets, Sarah Jones, Marin County director of community development, told the Chronicle. Marin County’s housing goal is to permit 14,210 units by 2031, while the housing target for unincorporated Marin County, which includes the North Coast development, is 3,569 units.
“This type of project is something that is unprecedented in our unincorporated county,” Jones said. She said the state is prioritizing adding a variety of housing to well-off neighborhoods with abundant resources, “as this project would do.”
Additional housing projects have been created with county housing targets in mind, where underperforming shopping centers have been considered as sites to create new neighborhoods.
The report, which took more than three years to finish, highlights the project’s impact, including traffic and noise. Neighbors have objected to the size of the project, lobbying against it since it was announced.
Famed architect Mark Cavagnero, who designed the project, did not return calls seeking comment, but he told the Chronicle in 2019 that the fight has “been a big, big, big taste of NIMBYism the likes of which I’ve never experienced.”
“There is no property anywhere near this size anywhere in southern Marin, if not all of Marin, that would be available and zoned for housing,” Cavagnero said at the time. “This is important not only for the housing we can build — workforce housing, affordable housing, senior housing — but also on an exemplary basis.”
The county’s principal planner for the project, Michelle Levenson, confirmed that Mark Cavagnero Associates is still the architectural firm working on the construction plans.
Riley Hurd, an attorney for the Seminary Neighborhood Association, which has long opposed the project, called the proposed construction timeline of four years “nothing short of comical,” adding that he “wouldn’t be surprised if this was a minimum of a 10-year construction project.” He said a longer construction timeline would mean great environmental impact. Levenson said she stands behind the timeline in the report.
The 411: The Seminary at Strawberry is located at 201 Seminary Drive. MORE INFO.Want to know what’s happening around town? Click here to subscribe to the Enjoy Mill Valley Blog by Email!
It’s absurd that there is this much prime real estate is just sitting there. We can add about 100 good size southern facing new construction 3000 square foot homes there. We really need this. It would tank housing values in Tiburon and Mill Valley and make it affordable for first time home buyers. People have made too much equity on their homes and we need to bring it down or it won’t be affordable for any working person. Already 20% down on a 3.2 million home is 16k still a month. We need to bring that down so that when interest rates comes down too, we can get a nice bay view, floor to ceiling open concept house with a pool for 2.5 with a 2% mortgage. That’s the dream. It’s ok if it comes at the expense of NIMBYs loosing 30% of their equity.